Navigation

Main menu

We had a great trip to Phantom Spires. Attending were Aaron and Kay, Tim , Seldom Seen Chris D., Mark, Ling, and new guys Chris S.and Todd. We camped at the east end of the Leap, a first for all of us, and it worked out well.

Tags:

With the Rim Fire still going strong, and hoping to avoid a smokey weekend in the Meadows like the one we experienced over Labor Day weekend, the club called an audible and headed to Shuteye Ridge. Personally, I’ve been ogling over this location for years but a lack of either published or internet information made the endeavor too complicated. Enter the new Shuteye Guidebook from Wolverine Publishing! Thanks Grahm Doe!

Shuteye is a ridgeline of highly featured cliffs and domes sprinkled along the Southern Yosemite border. Known for its runnels, water chutes, and chickenheads, the rock is a cross between Joshua Tree, Yosmite, and Red Rocks. Oh-yea. It’s that good.

Tags:

The weekend went well with only the minor mishap of Tim and I missing a trail turn off. Mark, Tim and I camped in the woods Saturday night, where we would be sheltered from the wind. Sunday, Tim and I skied to North Peak with the intention to climb the Crescent Moon Couloir.

The couloir was in condition but unfortunately Mike was not, we dropped our skis and extra gear when we elected to climb the West Ridge instead. The West Ridge is an enjoyable climb with one steep snow section. We summitted around 10:30 AM - in our rather clumsy ranndonee ski boots. The decent is fun, once you can start glissading. Contrary to Tim's video of me doing a very slow glissade, the upper part gets up some good speed. We picked up our skis and headed out.

Tags:

The 2013 Ouray Ice Festival was January 11-13. This was my first time to Ouray and the festival. Having only limited ice experience (I've climbed at Lee Vining and June Lake), Ouray was amazing with its short approach to hundreds of routes and great ice. Getting to Ouray can be a bit expensive but well worth the cost.

For those not familiar with Ouray, it is a small town in Colorado that proclaims itself the Switzerland of America. Ouray has natural water ice in the area, and several years back they started putting sprinklers at the top of the Uncompahgre Gorge. That soon turned into the first ice climbing park and now, the Ice Festival is world famous.

Tags:

Fall has come to the mountains. The afternoon thundershowers of last month are gone. The days are clear, bright and warm. The nights chilly. (Ice formed in Lea's Camel back left out on the bear box.) The trip was a great success, with the unusual feature of a rotating cast of climbers. Some people came up early and climbed Fri and Saturday, some climbed Saturday and Sunday then beat the traffic by going home. And a few climbed Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Dozier Dome was again popular, as was Stately Pleasure Dome, and a few ventured onto the thin faces of the South Flank of Daff (such as Hogwash, 10c.) Campfires were great with important conversations about safety, as well as general conversations about life.

Tags:

The CCC had two related trips this past week. We started with a weekend in Tuolumne Meadows, with a group campsite. For a weekend in Tuolumne at the height of its season, we had light attendance, only 12 people. The weather was perfect and people ran off to do many of the "normal" routes on Stately Pleasure and Pywiak, plus an ambitious few attempted long routes like Mathes Crest.

Tags:

Between June 13th and June 17th, I climbed the Nose with the Norwegian (aka Oyvind) and my Ohioan buddy Mike. Below is a short video highlighting some photos and GoPro footage we captured. Plus, we got some footage of Alex Honnold climbing Changing Corners during their world record on June 17th. Thank you to all the CCC for providing guidance and encouragment in the years leading up to this!

Also, special thanks to Sonja for letting us use her GoPro!

Tags:

We had a good turnout at the Leap, with 14 people. Conditions were great, with familiar route names on the tick list. The planets were cruel to the Pauls, however. Paul Stucky forgot to bring his warm clothes, and he and Mark I had to turn around in Placerville and go back to Paul's place in Davis to get the stuff. On the up side, they got to explore a new 5.9 route on Dear John Buttress that's shown in Supertopo. I forgot my tent poles and only averted marital meltdown by pressing into service one of the backbacking tents I brought to secure sites--otherwise I might still be up there today!